International supermajor BP is weathering the downturn in the Lower 48 by operating this segment of the business more like an independent. This has been achieved by forming a separate business entity for this market, allowing for faster decision making and adoption of innovations, said Tripp Edwards, Vice President...

The US land rig count is expected to remain flat for the remainder of the year, but approximately 200 rigs will go back to work in 2017, James West, Senior Managing Director at Evercore ISI, said at the 2016 IADC Drilling Onshore Conference in Houston. This signals a recovery, but it’s like to happen gradually rather than immediately. In this video from the conference on 19 May, Mr West explains some of the factors that will moderate the onshore drilling market recovery, including challenges around labor and equipment.

After almost two years of falling oil prices and rig counts, the industry should soon begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Raymond James and Associates is forecasting oil prices to average $60 in Q3 this year and $75 in 2017. “I think we are right at the beginning of a multi-year cyclical upswing in our business,” Marshall Adkins, Managing Director at Raymond James, said...

Although the downturn has severely strained many oilfield service companies’ budgets, some are using this time as an opportunity to grow. Germany-based Bentec, which is already established in Europe, Russia, North Africa and the Middle East, told DC that it is now entering the competitive North American...

World energy demand is likely to increase by a third by 2035, according to BP’s forecasts. However, oil and gas will face increasing competition from alternative energy sources over the coming years, BP Chief Executive of Upstream Bernard Looney said at the 2016 OTC on 2 May in Houston...

As the downturn continues with no end in sight, it’s clear that offshore drilling contractors must learn to operate long term at lower oil prices. “We have to be able to drill in this industry in the $30s,” Pete Miller, Chairman of the Board of Directors for Transocean, said during a panel discussion

Mexico’s National Hydrocarbon Commission (CNH) met with IADC on 9 March to obtain industry input on CNH’s regulatory priorities. Juan Carlos Zepeda Molina, the President Commissioner of CNH, said he hopes the cooperation between the two groups will help CNH to develop more robust regulations for Mexico’s upstream industry. In this video, filmed during CNH’s visit to Houston, Mr Zepeda outlines CNH’s goals for the coming year and its efforts to be a transparent and reliable organization that will earn the trust of the Mexican people. Read more about CNH’s plans and activities in the May/June issue of Drilling Contractor, due out the first week of May.

BP and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) signed a production sharing contract (PSC) for shale gas exploration, development and production in the Neijiang-Dazu block in the Sichuan Basin, China. Witnessed by BP Group Chief Executive Bob Dudley and CNPC Chairman Wang Yilin, the contract is BP’s first shale gas PSC in China and covers an area of approximately 1,500 sq km. CNPC will be operator for this project.

The geologic potential in Brazil’s pre-salt fields is enormous – estimated by the Industry Federation of the State of Rio de Janeiro to contain 56 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Further, Wood Mackenzie analysis shows that approximately 40% of total recoverable liquids discovered over the past decade have come from the Brazilian pre-salt.